Little Mosque on the Prairie: Cold
by sarandib
Summary: Ma sha Allah, he whispered. This is God's will. But it did nothing to comfort him. [The first in what I plan to be a series.]
1. Cold

Disclaimer: Not mine. Probably a good thing. I'd ruin it.

A/N: Little Mosque on the Prairie is a comedy. I have a pathetic sense of humor. But I'm good at drama, so drama it will be. I'm not Muslim, or Canadian, so if I get anything wrong (phrases or kilometers or celsius, etc.) I'd love a kind correction. Reviews and criticisms more than welcome. If you haven't seen this show, check it out on YouTube (type in "Little Mosque on the Prairie"). The world needs more shows like this!

Shrieks of young laughter and crystalline light coruscated over the snowy street as Rayyan pulled up to the mosque. Sweet, frosty air scented with wood smoke and wind blew through her headscarf as she got out of her car, weaving its fingers through her hair and brushing the back of her neck. She shivered and lifted her face to the late morning sun, letting its radiant warmth fall over her face and wash away the cold. Only for a moment did she stand enjoying the January day before her own pleasure reminded her another's fear, and what she was there to do.

The small smile that had lifted her lips failing, she turned to the mosque and pulled open the door. Removing her coat at the rack inside and slipping off her shoes, she went to the cheesy fake stone fountain they had plugged into the wall and slid her hands under the gurgle, gasping at the frigid water. Over and over her hands turned round one another, cleaning palms and fingers and wrists, and already she felt herself beginning to enter into a state of prayer with that familiar movement. Cupping her hands she brought the water up and poured it over her face, and felt herself becoming liquid and flowing into prayer as the water ran over her.

Reaching for the stack of towels near by, she took one and gently wiped the drips from her skin and dropped it into the used bin, her skin tingling as she moved through the cool air of the empty building and entered the prayer hall. With so small a group of worshipers, each had their customary rug among the patchwork of them laid out on the floor, and by habit she went to hers. Hands raised, she murmured the opening of her prayer, the Arabic words floating off her tongue and up to Allah's ears. _"Allah is the greatest… Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, the Beneficent, the Merciful..."_

He couldn't concentrate, and only felt mildly guilty for it. It was supposed to be his day off after all, and if he had a congregation that seemed to pull another harebrained problem out of a hat every time he opened the Qur'an to study, well, that was Allah's will, wasn't it? There was no way he was going to catch up on a week of contemplation in a single day, especially not after the week he'd had trying to keep Baber from declaring war on the 'heathens' after his daughter had been invited to attend a church New Year's function by a friend, and especially not with the sound of children laughing filtering into his office, reminding him of snow-filled childhood days in Toronto.

Throwing his pen in a drawer, he at last gave in and stood. If Allah had made it snow, then snow was the calling of the day!

Thinking of the snowman he was going to build, he rushed into the foyer but stopped in his tracks at the sight of Rayyan in prayer through the doorway. What was she doing here? The time for mid-morning prayer had already passed, and it was not yet noon. And it was Sunday. By a mutual, mostly unspoken agreement the members of the mosque didn't usually come on Sundays to avoid riling up the church-goers on their sabbath. The delicious anticipation of snow that he'd been filled with a moment before was squelched by a falling sensation in the pit of his stomach. Rayyan wouldn't be here unless something was wrong.

But he wouldn't interrupt her. Quietly as he could, he pulled on his jacket and gloves and slipped out the front door into the icicle-fractured light on the front steps, trying to let in as little cold air that might disturb her as possible.

With nothing else to do while he waited, he began building his snowman. Picking up a clump of snow, he packed it together into a tight ball and began patting more snow onto it until it was large enough to begin rolling beneath his hand. But his mind was not with his hands, and what had sounded like fun a few minutes ago now became automatic movements he was largely unaware of as concern flitted around his mind.

He had gotten the sphere of snow large enough that it came almost mid-way up his thigh and was pushing it around the churchyard when Rayyan finally emerged, buttoning closed her coat. She saw him laboring over the giant snowball and graced him with an amused smile, the worry dropping from her face and a little from his mind as he straightened.

"Is that going to be a Muslim snowman?" she joked, approaching him.

"Complete with a beard of twigs," he answered rubbing his hands together. "Though I may have to go steal one of Baber's hats."

She grinned. "I thought it was supposed to be your day off."

He rolled his eyes. "Thanks to Baber himself, I haven't gotten a thing done all week. I made up the first half of my sermon on Friday ten minutes before we were supposed to start, and made the other half up on the spot."

"I guessed as much," she laughed.

"So that's why you were snorting during the sermon!"

"I was not _snorting_!"

"You were laughing at me!"

She blushed a little and said sheepishly, "I was trying really hard not to."

"Oh, well that just makes it all better then." His grin faltering, he asked, "I saw you praying. Everything okay?"

"Yeah. It's one of my patients. She's pregnant, and she's already miscarried three times. She's five months along – she's never made it this far before – but she wants this child so badly, and she's afraid she's going to lose this baby too. I helped her through her last miscarriage, and I know how much pain it caused her. I came to pray for her."

"Do you think she'll make it?"

Rayyan shook her head. "I don't know. I hate to say it, but it's not likely. I just want to get her a couple months further along. If we can keep her from miscarrying another couple months the birth will be premature, but the baby will probably be okay. She's on bed rest and medicines to keep her from going into labor, and I've got an emergency plan set up with doctors at Frances hospital so we can take her in immediately if she starts to miscarry again."

"But Frances is more than fifty kilometers away. Why not take her to a closer hospital?"

"Frances has a team of doctors that specialize in these types of cases, and they have a pretty high success rate. No one else has anything close."

Amaar hesitated, the question he hated to ask hovering in his mouth for a moment. "But… what if it's snowing? Can you get her there?"

Rayyan's lips twitched in a grimace, and her eyes shone with worry. "That's why I'm praying."

She looked away, her gaze unfocused as she fell into her thoughts. He watched her, watched the shadow of doubt cast over her face, and became determined to pull her out of it. "Well," he called her away from her thoughts, "now that I know the world isn't balancing on the head of a pin-"

"It is for one woman," she contradicted.

"But not for you," he reminded her. "And yours is the only world that matters to me." She gave him an odd look, and he almost swallowed his tongue when he realized how that had sounded. "Yours, and Baber's, and your parents', and Fatima's, and everyone else's in the congregation," he added smoothly. "Because Allah help me if one of your guy's worlds starts falling apart. I'll be making up my sermon on the spot again, and having to endure you snorting at me through the entire thing!" She laughed brilliantly, her dark concerns momentarily forgotten, and he grabbed the opportunity. "Come on," he told her, turning back to the bottom of his snowman, "you get to help me with this thing."

"Oh, really?" she grinned.

"Consider it your penitence for laughing at me on Friday."

She crossed her arms as he began to push the heavy ball. "I don't recall anything in Islam about penitence."

"No, it's a Catholic thing, but I think it's an great idea," he grunted. He looked up at her. "Would you get over here?" he ribbed her.

She smiled broadly, her face for a moment light like a child's, and took her place beside him. "And after you can help me break into Baber's house and steal a hat."

"You aren't serious."

"I am too. I'm tempted to steal every one of his hats and leave him with nothing to wear as retribution for this past week."

Together they pushed the ball around the yard in circles, heaving and putting their weight against it until they had a somewhat lopsided sphere as high almost as high as their hips.

"There," Amaar breathed, dusting extra snow off his gloves. "You go start the next piece while I get this one set."

While he crouched down and began packing snow around the bottom of the ball, she walked off a little ways to a fresh patch of snow, her feet sinking beneath her. With cupped hands she gathered soft powder and pressed it together, squeezing it and turning it until it was round. As she added a little more to the growing ball, she glanced over to Amaar. He had to be the strangest imam she had ever met. He certainly didn't act like one. An imam building a snowman? A Muslim snowman? And joking about stealing hats? Surely there was something sacrilegious about that. Unlike most of the imams she had known who were solemn and distant, he was so casual, so human and warm and fallible (and sometimes cocky) that she forgot he was their spiritual leader until he said something reflective and wise that always seemed to catch her by off guard. But that was one of the things she liked about him: he made her forget - made all of them forget - that he was above them in stature, and everyone felt at ease with him.

As she watched him, and the snow in her hands grew to the size of a baseball, an idea came over her that was _definitely_ irreverent, and completely irresistible. As Amaar stood and shaved off the top of the sphere to make a flat surface for the torso to sit on, Rayyan knelt and packed more soft snow onto what she had started.

Amaar scraped the last of the snow off the surface he'd created, and looked at it with satisfaction. Turning to look for Rayyan, he asked, "How's the torso com-"

He didn't even making it all the way around before she threw the snowball, launching it perfectly just as he began to turn, and it shattered over his face. He stood frozen with surprise for a moment, trying to dig the snow out of his eyes, and when he could see stared at her in disbelief. She laughed nervously, afraid that maybe she'd stepped too far over the line after all. But her laughter broke his astonishment, and he grinned with anticipation.

"Oh, you are so dead!" he shouted.

She ducked behind a tree and began making a second ball as he stooped to make his first. He threw it as she peeked around the tree, and she pulled back, his snowball glancing off the trunk and disintegrating. Moving around the other side, she threw her second and pinned him on the shoulder.

"This is war!" he declared.

Laughing and breathless, she knelt to make another snowball, unaware of the cold seeping through her skirt. But when she stood and glanced around the tree again, Amaar wasn't there.

Confused, she turned around to look for him, and gasped as found herself face to face with him. Point blank he threw his snowball at her, and it sprayed all over her face. She shrieked at the cold and ran from him, and she could hear his laughter behind her as he gave chase. She turned and threw the snowball in her hand. He tried to duck, and it hit the back of his neck.

"Agh!" he cried, dancing around. "It went down the back of my shirt!"

She was about to duck behind the unfinished snowman when her cell phone rang. Immediately, her laughter faded and she held up a hand to Amaar. With cold and nervous fingers, she fumbled to pull it out of her coat pocket and flip it open. "Hello?"

His next snowball forgotten in his hand, he watched as her face paled, the sinking feeling returning to his stomach.

"Yes… Yes, I've got a bag packed and in my trunk. Call the ambulance. I'll be right behind her."

She snapped the phone closed. Amaar dropped his snowball and came to her. "Your patient?"

"Yes," she answered. "She's miscarrying… I'll call my parents on the way out of town, let them know."

"No, let me call them. You just drive."

She looked up at him with gratitude. "Amaar, pray for her, please."

"For you both. Go."

"Thank you," she murmured, and almost ran to her car.

"…Rayyan!" he called. She turned at the open door and looked back at him. "Be careful."

She nodded, and got in her car. He stood in the snow and watched her pull out and drive away, something cold settling in his gut that he tried to tell himself was the weather. Glancing up at the sky, he saw the sun was closing in on zenith, and he turned toward the mosque. Praying a little longer today seemed like a good idea.


	2. Crash

_"Wake up, people! It's the Fred Tupper show. Well, it was more of a gray Christmas than a white, but, boy, have we some snow now! Schools are extending winter breaks, and while all the children are dancing now, guess what that means… Shorter summers! Yes, all you parents out there, shout for joy. Less beautiful days ruined taking care of those bratty kids._

_"But it's not over yet, folks. We've got another whopper coming in this evening. Supposed to lay down a couple feet of snow! Main roads in town will be plowed until 8pm so people can make their way home, but everyone is advised to avoid the highways. Those hills are going to have some great powder on them. And speaking of which – coming up next, taking advantage of pain: how to sue your doctor for a ski injury you did to yourself!"_

Amaar groaned and slapped the power button on the radio. He'd tossed and turned for hours before finally giving up and getting up to pray. He'd said salahs for an hour, finally falling asleep on his prayer rug, and woke up with knots in his neck that hadn't gone away. Fred Tupper just wasn't something he could take this morning.

He wasn't even sure what was bothering him so much. That cold lump that had settled in his stomach watching Rayyan drive off had stayed, and again and again his mind had wandered to her during his prayers. Maybe it had been the fear he had seen in her eyes when she'd answered the phone. And yet it wasn't she who was in danger: her fear was for another. So why was he afraid for her?

He sat up suddenly. He was afraid for her. He hadn't let himself think that before, but now that it had floated to the surface of his mind he knew it was true. And it didn't make any sense.

He resisted the itch to call her, to see how things were going. If her hands were busy trying to save that baby's life, he didn't dare risk distracting her.

A flash of orange shirt passed by the partially open office door, and Amaar jumped up. "Yasir!"

The man stopped and looked back at him as he opened his door, his expression immediately turning to one of scrutiny.

"Any word from Rayyan?" he asked.

"No, nothing yet," he answered, examining Amaar. "You look terrible."

"I, ahh… I didn't sleep well last night…" Yasir peered at him, and Amaar immediately felt exposed, as though Yasir was speculating what had kept Amaar up all night and was uncomfortably close to the truth. "Heater went out. I was too cold," he said. Trying to explain to Rayyan's father his irrational worries would only bring trouble and speculation. And there was enough of that around here for him to deal with without being the subject of it himself.

"You should let me take a look at it."

"Nah. I already got it. Took me till almost three in the morning but I jerry-rigged it back together. Thanks for the offer though."

Inwardly, Amaar winced. Oh, how easily a lie, once started, flows like silk from the tongue!

"Alright. Well, I'm going home. Not much I can do today with all this snow. Stay warm. Call me if your heater goes out again. But not after nine! I'll be, um, busy."

Amaar grinned. "Alright. You keep warm too."

"That is my plan," he called over his shoulder, eye brows raised suggestively. Amaar chuckled as he watched him go. That the man thoroughly enjoyed certain aspects of married life was no secret. And more power to him. He admired Yasir and Sarah for not turning into a grumpy, miserable, bickering couple after more than twenty-five years married, and hoped he would someday fare as well.

Turning back into his office, he rubbed at his stiff neck. He returned to his desk and sat, and with a sigh pulled out the Qur'an. The best thing for a troubled mind was Allah… if only the words would stop swimming.

The clouds had begun to gather during the mid-afternoon prayers, announcing the coming storm with wind that whistled past the glass of the mosque windows. But dusk comes early in January, and had concealed the darkening sky.

Amaar lay on a couch beneath a window in an empty room normally used for bible studies. He'd been here since he'd finished his afternoon prayer in a sincere attempt to nap. But as tired and heavy as his body had been, as soon as he'd laid down he'd found himself wide awake, captivated by the supernatural silence that hung before the storm. The coldness that had been with him since the day before had gotten no better. If anything it had gotten worse as he'd lain there, creeping into his veins as he watched the flakes begin to fall, slowly and then in violent flurries, white edged with gold under the spotlights hanging from the side of the building. There had still been no word from Rayyan – Sarah had even called him to see if he had heard from her ("She would have called you before she called me," he had told her) – and for some reason that bothered him much more than it seemed it should.

His watch beeped, announcing the time for sunset prayers, and he sat up slowly and set his feet on the floor, rubbing his face with his hands. Dragging himself up, he left the room and went out into the foyer.

Amaar performed his ablutions, spending longer than usual in front of the fountain and letting the cold water shock him awake. He had just entered the prayer hall and was heading for his prayer rug when he heard his cell ringing in his jacket pocket by the door.

Sliding in his socked feet, he ran to the coat rack and dug into the pocket. He pulled out the phone and flipped it open. "Rayyan?"

"Amaar," her voice flooded him with relief, and he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, mouthing a silent _al-hamdulillah,_ 'praise Allah'. "How did you know it was me?"

"Just a guess," he answered, already laughing at himself for how wound up he'd been since she'd left. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, we did it." He could hear the smile in her voice, and smiled with her. "She'll have to stay at Frances until she gives birth, but the team was able to observe her while she was starting to enter full labor, and they think they know what's wrong. They were able to stop it, and we think we can keep it from happening again, at least until it's safe to deliver the baby."

"You sound exhausted."

"We were up all night with her. We weren't sure we'd succeeded until a few hours ago… Amaar, thank you."

"For what?"

"For praying for her."

"You were Allah's hands, Rayyan. You were the one who saved her baby. It was Allah's will. I doubt my prayers did anything to help that."

"It helped me," she told him quietly.

Warmth flowed through him where for the past two days there had only been cold. "Anytime."

A silence lapsed between them, and after the worry that had plagued him he was content to let it linger just knowing she was on the other end of the line. But finally Rayyan spoke.

"I should go so I can call my parents."

His mind reeled for a moment. "You called me first?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, I wanted to tell you. But I should let Mom and Dad know I'm on my way home."

Immediately cold sluiced through his guts again, this time with a sense of foreboding, and he pushed off from the wall. "Wait, you're on the road?"

"Yeah, I-"

"Rayyan, no. Pull off now."

"Amaar, what-"

"You're driving in a snow storm! What were you thinking? We're supposed to get over two feet of snow tonight."

"Amaar, I'm halfway home."

"You haven't slept in two days!"

"I slept a couple hours at the hospital before I left."

"I don't care," he emphasized every word, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "Pull off, find a motel room for the night."

"I want to sleep in my own bed. Besides, I don't have the money for a motel room."

"I'll pay for it. You find a place and I'll give them my card number."

"But-"

"Rayyan, please. Just trust me on this one… Consider it how you can thank me for my prayers."

"Oh, now we're into blackmail?" She teased, but he could hear in her voice that she had already given in. "Fine. I'll turn off at the next exit. Happy now?"

"Not until you get there and let me know you're safe."

"Okay, I-"

Her words were cut off by a gasp, and his heart stopped as he heard a crashing and the screeching of metal, then silence broken only by the sound of his own rasping breath.

"Rayyan?... Rayyan?!" he yelled. A harrowing silence was his only answer.

The metallic taste of panic rose in his throat, and he shoved his feet back into his shoes. Forgetting his jacket completely, he flew out the front door, almost slamming into Baber on the way in.

"Ah, Amaar! Where are you going? It's time for Maghrib prayers."

"Baber, I need you to call Yasir and Sarah. Rayyan crashed on her way home from Frances hospital."

"What is this? How do you-"

"I was on the phone with her, Baber. Listen to me! Tell Yasir and Sarah what's happened, and that I've gone to find her."

"What?" the older man cried, grabbing the imam's sleeve as Amaar pushed past him. "Are you mad? The highway is suicide. You'll crash out there yourself, or get lost! "

"I'm going after her, Baber. Tell her parents I'll find her."

Yanking his arm away, he ran down the steps to his car. He threw it into gear even before he'd gotten the door fully closed, his tires spinning beneath him before they finally gained purchase and he tore out of the parking lot as fast as the storm would allow.


	3. Allah Forbid

AN: Many thanks to my beta, Embrace Futility!

Sarah stood at the kitchen sink, staring out at the blustering storm as she waited for the pot to fill with water. Dark weather always dampened her mood. She loved snow, loved building snow forts, and snowmen, and sledding, and all the things snow brought. But her only favorite part of a snowstorm was when it was over, and the ferocity outside was doing nothing to help her unease.

Much to Yasir's disappointment all afternoon. But Yasir was an optimistic man, and three denials in as many hours did nothing to dim his hopes. Entering the kitchen, he came up behind Sarah and wrapped his arms around her. She smiled despite herself, his warmth comforting her, and she leaned back into him as he dipped his head to kiss the side of her neck.

"Do you think I should put on enough spaghetti for Rayyan too?" she asked.

"I think," he said, working his way up to her jaw, "she would have called by now if she were going to be home for dinner."

Sarah frowned and turned in his arms. "We should have heard from her by now, Yasir." He didn't quite refrain from rolling his eyes in exasperation. "She would have at least called to tell us she _wasn't_ going to be home."

"Sarah, dearest, our daughter is twenty-five. She's an adult. Most parents don't hear from their children more than once a week." Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but Yasir didn't let her. "She has a doctor's degree. She's smart. Rayyan can take care of herself, you know she can." A little miserably, Sarah nodded. "She's just busy saving that baby. And she'll come home when she's done. In the meantime," he said mischievously, his mouth returning its attention to her skin, "we have the house to ourselves. And I think we should enjoy it."

His ministrations were beginning to warm her, her skin tingling where he'd given his attention, and when he lifted his head to kiss her lips she gave in, wrapping her arms around his neck. "What about dinner?" she asked suddenly.

"I am hungry," he growled, "for something long... thin... white... and not spaghetti." She giggled, and he bent to capture the sound on her lips with his own. She had barely let him touch her before she slipped out of his arms with a laugh and made a dash for the stairs. Grinning, he gave chase, catching her half way up and spinning her to claim her mouth again. Passions rising, they started stumbling awkwardly up the steps, still entwined around one another.

They had almost made it to the top when a harsh knocking resounded through the house. Sarah put a hand on Yasir's chest. "Wait."

"It's not Rayyan," he groaned. "She has a key. Let them go away."

Sarah was inclined in the moment to agree with him. But before he could go back to distracting her the pounding on the door came again, incessant and urgent. Sarah extracted herself from Yasir's embrace, and he threw up his hands in exasperation.

"What if their car broke down?" Sarah asked him. "You're just going to let them sit out there all night?"

"Let them go to someone else's house!"

Sarah unlocked the door and pulled it open to find Baber on the front steps, his fist raised mid-knock. Without waiting for an invitation, he barged in, snowflakes tumbling off his shoulders and hat and melting on the hall floor.

"Baber, what-"

"It is terrible! Terrible!" he cried.

Yasir was tempted take the man and shove him back out the front door. Of all the people… "_What_ is so terrible, Baber?" he asked irritatedly.

"Rayyan! Amaar was on the phone with her-"

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Yasir snapped. "Would you keep your nose out of my daughter's business? You have a daughter of your own to snoop around on."

"Wait," Sarah cut in. "She was on the phone with him? When?"

"Twenty minutes ago."

Sarah gasped. "She called Amaar and she hasn't even called us!" she exclaimed indignantly, then gasped again in excitement. "Do you think something's going on between them?"

"Would you shut up and listen to me!" Baber yelled. Both Sarah and Yasir looked at him, startled. "Amaar was on the phone with Rayyan, and he heard her crash."

"Crash?" Yasir uttered.

"Yes! She was driving home, and he said he heard her crash."

Sarah felt like the floor had fallen out from beneath her feet, and she grabbed Yasir's arm. "She out in the storm?" Yasir asked.

"Yes."

Yasir pulled himself away from Sarah, and grabbed his keys and coat. "I'm going out to find her."

"Wait! Yasir, you don't even know where she is!" Sarah said desperately. Yasir stopped, his hand tight on the doorknob, knowing she was right. Guilt and confusion tore at Sarah: part of her wanted so badly to see Yasir run out that door and bring their daughter home; but she knew how unlikely it was, and how reckless he would be, and she was afraid of losing him too.

"Amaar already went after her," Baber told him.

Yasir looked at Baber over his shoulder. "What?"

"Amaar's out there?" Sarah asked, unconsciously putting a hand to her chest as though she could muffle the skipping of her heart.

"Yes, the fool. I told him it was suicide, but he wouldn't listen to me. He told me to tell you what had happened and went running out of the mosque without even saying a _bismillah_."

"He knows where she is, then?" Yasir demanded.

Baber shrugged. "Maybe. It seemed so."

Sarah and Yasir's eyes locked on one another, and they held a long silence, their gaze a conversation of fear and desperation in itself. Finally, Yasir's shoulder's dropped, and Baber recognized he had given up on going out into the storm.

"Maybe she's not hurt," Sarah hoped. "Maybe she just slid off the road and got stuck."

"It's going to drop past negative twenty out there before morning," Yasir said, his face vacant. "Even if she wasn't hurt-" He struggled with the words. He looked away from his wife, then forced himself to look back. She deserved to know the truth. "This storm isn't supposed to lift until morning. If her car's not running, she'll have no heat. I don't know if she can last that long." Dread filled the hallway, heavy and thick.

"Can't we call the police? If we give them her license plate, they can look for her-"

"We will, and we'll give them a description of Amaar's car too. But they won't be out in this weather. It's too dangerous. Not till the storm is over. …If Amaar knows where she is, then he's her only chance."

Sarah whispered, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it said aloud. "What if Amaar doesn't make it? What if he crashes too?"

Yasir couldn't make himself answer her this time, and looked away. Baber answered instead. "Then, Allah forbid, we lose them both."


	4. Marooned

The snowfall was so thick that he couldn't see more than three feet in any direction, and the wind buffeted his car, making him weave as he tried to compensate. After leaving the plowed roads of Mercy he'd been forced to slow to thirty kilometers an hour – and he knew that was pushing his luck. In the hour it had taken him to get twenty-five kilometers from town he'd already fishtailed three times, almost gone off the road twice, and if there was anyone else foolish enough to be out here there was little chance he'd see them before he hit them.

And little chance he would see Rayyan. She should be somewhere near by; she had said she was halfway home. He slowed to a crawl, peering desperately through the haze of flakes, but could see nothing. Angrily he hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. If she was hurt, every minute that passed was precious. How far ahead of him might she be? What if he'd already passed her and hadn't seen her?

"Allah, help me find her," he pleaded.

The car bucked over a hump of frozen snow and hit ice on the other side, the nose going sideways. Gasping through clenched teeth, he pressed the gas and tried to steer into the turn, but instead of regaining control he spun. The car slid wildly over the ice sheet as he fought with the steering wheel, the world outside a blurred white swerving until with a bone-jarring impact that threw him forward the car came to a halt and hissed.

Even before he had straightened, the silence told him the engine had stopped. Sitting back up shakily, Amaar looked out the windshield and saw nothing but a wall of dim white. "No. No, no, no…" Despairingly he turned the key and pressed the gas once and a second time, and got nothing but a weak rumble from the car. "Come on!" he yelled, and turned the key a third time. Beneath the hood the engine coughed and felt silent.

Throwing open the driver's door he jumped out, the cold immediately stinging his skin and burning his lungs. The entire hood was embedded in a snow bank beside a rail guard, the windshield buried in what had collapsed off the top. There was no way he was going to be able to dig it out on his own.

Anger flaring, he slammed the door closed. "No!" he roared, kicking it and pounding his fist on the roof. Devastation swept over him and he leaned against the side, covering his face with a hand. He sucked in chilling breaths, trying to fight back the burning in his eyes and throat. "_Ma sha Allah,_" he whispered to himself. _This is Allah's will_. But it did nothing to comfort him.

He knew he should get back in the car. He was as lost as Rayyan now, and the temperature was dangerous. Without a coat he knew he was risking hypothermia if he stayed out here. But getting inside meant giving up. Abandoning his search was abandoning Rayyan, and he didn't know how to make himself do that.

_You open the door and you get inside,_ he thought to himself. _You can't help her now. You won't be good to anyone if you're dead._ Clenching his fists, he stood and reached for the door handle. With one last glance into the murky storm he opened the door-

And looked again. He peered through the snowfall, trying to decide if he'd really seen what he thought he had. A breath of wind blew aside the curtain of flakes in front of his eyes, and he flung the door closed and ran to the middle of the guardrail. Here there was a section torn away, the metal shredded at the ends of what remained on either side, and leading to the gap in the rail and continuing past it was a set of parallel trenches, shallow now and quickly filling with snow – the exact width apart as a set of tires.

Amaar launched himself through the gap in the railing, half running and half tumbling between the tire tracks down into the ravine below, passing the missing piece of guardrail and slivers of wood and metal. As he reached the bottom he made out her car, mangled and already half-buried in the snow. "Rayyan!" he shouted over the wind. He stumbled to the front, sinking into the snow up to his thighs, but could see nothing through the foggy glass. With a pounding heart he began digging, kicking and scraping away the snow until there was room enough to open the driver's door. He hesitated only a moment, terrified of what he might find, and yanked the door open. Rayyan sat limp in the seat, the steering wheel draped in the white cloth of a empty airbag, eyes closed and a dark trickle of blood running down her temple from the edge of her scarf.

He stood frozen, afraid to check for breath or a pulse for fear it wasn't there. But the sudden cold rushing through the open door revived her enough to make her cringe, and he knelt by her side. "Rayyan?" He started to reach for her and caught himself, then thought better of it. Allah forgive him, they couldn't afford etiquette right now. He put a hand on her arm and squeezed gently, trying not to jostle her. "Rayyan?"

She responded to him, grimacing as she fought her way to consciousness, her eyelids fluttering. "Wake up, Rayyan. Open your eyes for me."

She managed to crack them open, and gazed at him in glossed confusion. "…Amaar?" she breathed.

He let out a sigh of relief and undid the seatbelt still strapped across her. "Come on, we have to get you out of here." Rising, he put his arms beneath Rayyan's and pulled her to her feet. "Can you walk?" he asked her.

Her whole body hurt, but her legs perhaps hurt the least. She nodded, and was immediately sorry for it. Sparks danced over her vision, and she clutched his sleeve. "Okay," he said. He wrapped an arm around her back to support her and draped her arm over his shoulder. "Lean on me. Take it easy."

With excruciating slowness they made their way back up the slope of the ravine, falling and sliding as the loose snow gave out under their feet. "Come on, we're almost there," he encouraged her. Grimacing with pain, she grabbed for the guard rail and together they climbed out onto the street.

Amaar opened the back passenger door and let Rayyan get in first before crawling in behind her and shutting the door. The scant warmth of his car felt almost hot after the razor-edged cold outside, and she let herself collapse back into the seat and closed her eyes. Her head was pounding, and her lungs ached after the struggle up the slope, but every breath felt like a knife being driven into her in a dozen different places, and she couldn't draw in more than a shallow gasp.

Panic began to rise as her body demanded for air, and she commanded herself to think of something else besides breathing. She didn't know what had happened. What was the last thing she remembered?... She had been on the phone with Amaar, driving home when she'd lost control. She remembered the phone falling from her hand, fighting to slow the car and straighten it out, and after that… brief flashes of pain and cold and blurred visions of snow cascading over the windshield amidst a curtain of darkness… it was just easier not to move…

…Amaar's voice beside her, pulling her back to consciousness.

The memory skipped like a bad record, her mind unable to make sense of it. Amaar was in Mercy. How could he be here? She knew she had hit her head; maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe she was still in the car at the bottom of the ravine and this was all a fabrication of her injured mind.

She opened her eyes, and he was still there, his face in his hands and shivering. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched his arm with her fingertips, trying to prove to herself his reality. His sweater was cool and soft, and she could feel him trembling. He was real. Her heart dropped in distress. Throbbing pain robbed her of coherant reasoning, but she knew they weren't safe, and she wanted him anywhere but here.

He hadn't started shaking this bad until he'd gotten in the car, his body quivering violently with cold and raw nerves, and he let his head drop into his hands, drawing in a couple shuddering breaths and trying to calm himself. Her touch lighter than a whisper on his arm surprised him, and relief and gratefulness washed over him. _Al-hamdulillah,_ maybe Allah had heard his prayers after all. He felt the fear drain out of him, leaving awe glowing faintly at the ragged edges of his awareness. "Amaar?"

He raised his head and looked to her, and she pulled her hand away. She was gazing at him with a dazed expression, her breathing labored. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"What are you doing here?"

He almost laughed in incredulity. "I was looking for you. I must have hit the same patch of ice you did, and crashed into the snow bank. When I got out to check the damage I saw your tire tracks… I thought I wouldn't find you," he said, trying to wrap his head around it.

She covered her eyes with a hand. "Why did you do that?"

Her voice was almost angry, and it confused him. "What?"

"You shouldn't have come out here! You should have stayed in Mercy!" she said sharply, dropping her hand and looking at him. He opened his mouth, but couldn't figure out what to say, too baffled by her unexpected rebuke. As she stared at him unforgivingly, she realized what was bothering her. "…Amaar, why aren't you wearing a coat?" He opened his mouth again, but realized he had no explanation she wanted to hear. "Please don't tell me you don't have it!"

"I forgot it," he finally retorted in irritation.

"What were you thinking?" she fumed.

His own anger flared hot in his chest. "Maybe I was thinking about you! Maybe because I heard you crash and was afraid you were hurt. Because I knew the police wouldn't come out looking for you in this!"

"So you drive out here and crash too?" She took a shallow breath. "What if you'd been hurt, or-"

"So you're the only one allowed to do something stupid?"

"I made a mistake! But now we're both trapped out here, and-" She stopped, almost doubling over as she gasped for air, her hand clutching her chest.

"Rayyan! Rayyan, what's wrong?"

She didn't answer him. Her other hand moved to the edge of the cushion and gripped it with white fingers, and her eyes screwed shut. He watched helplessly as she fought for air, drawing in painful gulps, until finally her breathing began to slow and she slumped back against the seat.

He let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Rayyan, talk to me."

"Airbag…" she groaned. "Broke a couple ribs… Concussion…"

Amaar pushed back the tendrils of dread that coiled around him. "Tell me what to do."

"Keep me awake," she murmured. "Just keep me awake."

* * *

Yasir's eyes bored into the darkness beyond the windowpane. Even the veil of ivory snow that plummeted to the drifts in the yard below looked like charcoal clumps of ash, and he wondered if maybe the Qur'an had been wrong after all, if maybe the fires of hell were actually a searing cold and they had descended into it without knowing. Behind him, Sarah sat on the couch, her hands gripping one another bloodlessly and her gaze fixed on something unseen. Baber had left almost two hours before to get home to his daughter before the roads through town became impassible, leaving them with the promise that he would pray for them through the night. Yasir gritted his teeth. If Allah hadn't kept his daughter from crashing in the first place, what interest could He possibly have in helping her survive until morning?

_"This is station CBK, 540 FM, with a weather alert update. Conditions have been holding at blizzard level for the past hour, and are expected to continue. Temperature has dropped to negative twenty-three degrees celsius and is calculated to hit negative twenty-seven by three A.M., with a wind-chill of negative thirty-five and below. All emergency response units have been shut down until further notice. Local authorities are advising everyone to stay inside-"_

Yasir turned sharply and grabbed the radio off the couch side table. He yanked it violently, an orange spark jumping from the socket as he ripped the plug out of the wall, and hurled the radio blindly. It hit the far wall and shattered, startling Sarah out of her trance.

"Yasir?" She stood as he marched past her into the entry hall. She ran to follow. "Yasir, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to find Rayyan!" he declared, throwing on his coat and snatching the car keys.

"No." Sarah put herself between him and the door. "You can't go out there!"

"Get out of the way!" he growled, seizing her arms and trying to shove her aside. She grabbed the doorknob and held on, refusing to budge. "That's my daughter out there!" he yelled at her.

"That's my daughter too!" The grief and fear in her voice and her face cut through to him, and he stopped. She took an uneven breath. "You won't be able to find her, Yasir."

He hung his head. "I can't just sit here, Sarah."

She lay her hands on his shoulders. "I know. But you don't even know where to look for her. And you could get stuck too. What if you get hurt? What if the truck breaks down? You could die out there."

"I don't know," Yasir said tremulously, "if I want to be alive if Rayyan doesn't come home tomorrow."

Sarah's eyes burned with tears, and she took her husband in her arms. "I know," she whispered. "I know."


End file.
